WE’RE SOMETHING

Friday Flash 55 & more prompts below
Try my Paranormal Flash now!

PROF ISAAC GALISTEIN

Earth is an insignificant planet. Nothing special in the cosmos. Also,
mankind is nothing in universal terms. These simple facts should excite
us, ‘cos when you are nothing, it should be reason to be something.
This has fuelled advancement – bettering ourselves. Alternatively
being nothing can make you realize you’ll never be anything. This is
self-defeating and separates the men from the boys. When I look at
all the tech on the drawing board that could send us to the stars, and
the fact that we aren’t there, I ask: are we men or boys?

Eye On the World
Essays on everything from science
to religion, politics to crime

CRIME NEWS: Some prison governors
in UK think prison terms under a yr should
be scrapped. They don’t work. Well make them work!

BRIT NEWS: Labour to raise £16bn to help pay off deficit by asset
stripping. Parties are bidding for office. When’s the granny going?

SCI NEWS: Pill use over 40 yrs has put women off masculine men,
say scientists. That doesn’t explain why masculine men are rare.

TECH NEWS: Brit govt digital task force wants all online
by 2012. Can a situation ever come when this
is achieved? Will coercion be used?

FUTURE ZONE

What’s ahead … and Beyond!!!

One Single Impression
Sunday Scribblings – 3 Word Thursday

TO CONQUER TIME

We had to do it, it was our way,
If something’s to be done, we can’t go astray,
Knowledge demands that everything chimes,
And we’d learnt, at last, how to conquer time,
Create, for all, an eternal now,
Taking the ultimate temporal bow,
With all that had been at once, so plain,
Now we live knowing the universe is pain

FLASH 55 – CLOUD FLOATER
(Quilly’s word meanings below)

Sci Fi: They couldn’t get over the beauty of it as they watched. He
was nubivagant, graceful, tenellous, as if with wings. He seemed
surrounded by light and they knew he would be utible. Soon his flight
ended. And as he arrived on the slab in the flying saucer, the alien
smiled and picked up the probe.

tenellous – tender
nubivagant – moving thru clouds
utible – useful

SPAM

Spam is here, then it’s there,
Spam should make us all beware,
Of evolution in the raw,
Spreading like nature’s tooth and claw,
Filling environments like a weed,
Runaway capitalism’s holy creed

© Anthony North, October 2009

Try my Pictures of Life, a novel

TONY ON BIG LIT BANG NOVEL & MORE

Including Heads or Tails, ABC Wednesday, Manic Monday and Monday Poetry Train.
Have you had a go yet?

PROF ISAAC GALISTEIN ON BIG BANG

Big Bang isn’t the only explanation of the universe. There is also Steady State, which says the universe regenerates itself constantly. This idea is shunned by the mainstream, but could philosophy lie behind this? We live in a linear world where everything has to have a beginning and an end. To not have such is just so … well – eastern!

BLOGGER BARD ON MODERN LIT

As a general rule I dislike modern literary novels. I love the classics, but with the modern I found myself playing ’search for the story’. Maybe writers place all value in the individual today, but they seem to be all about an angst-driven search for self.
Next post Wed. See you then.

© Anthony North, March 2009

My Columnists

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Why Are We Here

We are well aware of the idea that life constantly evolves. But how
far does this process of evolution go? Does it stop at life, or could
it be argued that evolution is a property of the cosmos?
… read more …

Abolish Political Parties

BRIT NEWS: A rainbow alliance is forming of
anarchists and greens as the London G20 Summit
approaches. Many fear riots. Will they happen? Well,
it depends on the weather. If it’s nice, possibly. Brit
rioters don’t like getting wet.
*
BRIT NEWS: Brownski and the Palace have discussed Royal
reforms regarding allowing royalty to marry Catholics, and placing
equal female succession. I’m always suspicious of NuLabour
meddling in royalty, but this one is long overdue.
*
HEALTH NEWS: The Lancet accuses Pope of distorting
science over condom claims. Some time science
and religion have to start talking. The problem is
maybe no longer a scientific or religious view,
but the antagonism between the two.

Lots more news on my Mini Blog

PSI-WORLD

A small step into the dark

My Unexplained Sub-Domain

**********

THE SEER

She sits so still, lets them in,
Soon the spirits begin to sing,
Seeing so much of what life’s about,
Offering messages without doubt,
But where they reside, I’m not so sure,
Inner mind, not Heaven pure?

GETTING UP

Fiction: Getting up that morning was scary. I suppose, at first, it
seemed a normal morning, but there was just something about it
that I knew wasn’t right. And it wasn’t just scary for me – it was,
in a way, doubly scary for them. Oh boy, how they ran! You see,
I died yesterday.

K is for … KARMA

Lived before, I must have done,
Too much life overcome,
Wisdom always being my guide,
Previous lives in which to confide,
Grounded by a moral code,
Karma stopping me being a toad

THE BIRD

I see him not, I close my eyes,
Then into sight he surely flies,
Guides my mind to vistas new,
Nature’s truths are now in view,
My animal guide then lowers a claw,
To mystic lands, together we soar

© Anthony North, March 2009

SCRIBBLERS’ NEWS

Check out my Writers’ Tips posts

Here we go with another Scribblers’ News. Is it proving useful?
I’m trying to do my bit to help advertise the prompt sites, as
too many have been disappearing. Can anyone think of other ways
of doing so? Let me know of any news or new sites.

Search Engine Stories
The phrase to write about is: Kiss me
Monday Poetry Train
Any poem can be linked here
Poefusion
A fortune cookie type of poem req’d this week. Take a look
Manic Monday
The word is: ‘bird’. What can you do with that? Post it Mon.
ABC Wednesday
The letter is ‘k’. Posted Tues evening GMT
My Neck Of the Woods
A new prompt: writing about your local area
Write Anything
Always a good source of info and prompts

**********

Call back Wed for more sites.
Follow me on Twitter
Mini-essays at top from Wise Word and Dark Zone. Take a look.

ANSWERING THE WOOSAYERS

Click The ‘Y’ Files for more unexplained essays

Fed up of being associated with ‘woo’? Well, no, not really – in a way it’s a compliment. It shows you’re being noticed, and if you’re noticed, you’re making a difference.
This is the beauty of the woosayers (see def below) – in their determination to stamp out alternative thought, they actually guarantee its audience will grow. So let us all give a big thank you to those marvellous boys and girls.

Why do they get so annoyed?

Because, as with religious orthodoxy, they believe in an absolute truth – that science is the only way. Well, to a point they’re right, but in championing science, they place more into it than actually exists.
Science is not about truth, but the on-going understanding of nature and the universe. Nothing can ever be conceptually ‘proved’ in science. The woosayers are unhappy with this, and decide to turn science into a religion.

They are assisted in this by science itself.

You see, science doesn’t seem to allow room in the universe for esoteric concepts such as the paranormal or intelligent universal consciousness.
They seem to offer answers and directions that appear rational. But science is hampered by only being able to speak of the universe and not what may be outside it. And I’m not talking about a man in a white beard.

Science can say nothing of before Big Bang.

This is because the universe did not exist. But we can imply that something occurred at this point outside the universe to set it in motion – if, of course, Big Bang is correct.
Everything that happens in the universe is a result of this implied action. So technically, there could be an as yet undiscovered influence stemming from that action that is, itself, technically not in the universe.

At first, this sounds ridiculous.

But consider the layered reality of ecosystems. They build upon each other, and have an effect on each other both within and outside a particular ecosystem. And this is an influence that cannot be measured by science.
What is the nature of this influence from outside a system, but nonetheless having an affect within? Consider Chaos Theory and the idea that a butterfly’s wings can cause a hurricane. What are we dealing with here?
We are dealing with subtle action of known properties working in non-understood ways to produce something bigger than itself. Something tiny from outside the final expression caused something mighty.
I think this is the direction some areas of research should go, re-checking the relationship with the known to see if it can react in presently unknown ways. Science is even beginning to realise the possibility in the idea of emergence – the way complex systems arise from simple components.
Whilst we’re waiting for science to catch up, though, a philosophy of the esoteric is required to study such possibilities in a rational way. In this way, we can do a better service than the woosayer, jumping up and down like a demented kangawoo.

© Anthony North, March 2009

DEFINITION OF WOOSAYER

He who says of you,
You deal in nothing but woo,
And claims he speaks only true,
Yet sounds like he’s stuck in the loo

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CREATIONISM

Click The ‘Y’ Files for more posts in this series.

There is a feeling among rationalists that the world is slowly going mad. The reason? The continuing growth of fundamentalist beliefs concerning Creationism. But what is at the root of this growing phenomenon?
Well, first of all, science cannot – ever – prove it wrong. They can rant and rave; they can show how science shows it is not the case – but at best, this can only show the working mechanisms of a process, and not the ‘whys’.

Thus, God is immune to the scientific process.

And the sooner science accepts this and stops decrying the Creationist, the sooner there may be the return of a little commonsense in the debate – on both sides.
This is not simply an opinion of mine. I think it can be backed up by sound reasoning. And not reasoning to do with science or Creationism, but the process of the very conflict involved.

I think there is a valid law for such conflicts.

I call it the ‘law of opposite effect’. It can be explained quite simply. The more one stance becomes entrenched, the more the other will dig in its heels.
Thus, the condemnation from either side will guarantee the reasons for condemnation will increase. Hence, the problem isn’t science or Creationism, but the battle between the two.

And it gets worse.

As the conflict continues, and stances become more fundamental, the point comes when both sides become fanatical. When this point arrives, all commonsense disappears.
But more than this, my law has another element: basically, the more fanatical you become, the more you will further the opposite outcome to that intended. Hence, science guarantees Creationism, and vice versa.

And the problem is also of paradigms.

Science is now grounded in a totally material world, with nothing other than what can be observed. Well, one thing can be observed above the material – the innate need in people for something above the material.
I’m talking about a form of spirituality. Now, to me, spirituality is about bonding – of man to man, mankind to nature, and nature to the universe. It is a form of holistic love, I suppose, and I assume scientists DO fall in love, despite their rationality.
Hence, in a world that does not offer intellectual ideals concerning this process, the gap will be filled by systems that do. And the ultimate expression of this is an entire universe created through love by God.
An urge towards spirituality will always exist. Whether this means there is a supernatural or not is beside the point. And as long as science decides there is no such thing, they will continue to fuel movements that say there is. And to be quite honest, in terms of the knowledge we have, they could be just as right as scientists think THEY are.

© Anthony North, March 2009

TONY ON TODAY’S SCIENCE & MORE

Including One Single Impression, Sunday Scribblings and Manic Monday.
Have you had a go yet?

PROF ISAAC GALISTEIN – But what is a Scientist?

The world is full of scientists, researching this and experimenting with that. Changing this, advancing that, making things worse with the other. But is it true that the world is full of scientists?

It depends on your definition.

To me, there have only ever been a handful of scientists, and I doubt if there’s one alive today. To me, a true scientist is someone who came up with something radically new, and changed the paradigm.
This leaves a very exclusive club, populated by people such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Mendel and Einstein. Okay, there’s probably a few more, but other than this select band of brains, what we call ‘science’ is really validating and amending what is already done.

Which is not really science.

Not in terms of groundbreaking brilliance. And perhaps the reason why there are so few is that most of the above were rebels, outside the accepted field of research.
Today, it is practically impossible to be even considered a scientist without a career in a tightly controlled club. Which is just what is not needed for the ‘rebel’ to reappear. Me thinks science, today, has banished the idea of what science should be.

Copyright © Anthony North, February 2009

My Columnists

HEALTH NEWS: Eggs now safe to eat. My view
simple: nothing will kill you in moderation. But why
safe now? Recession. Live cheap. Needs must.
*
BRIT NEWS: Bank of England boss warns economy could shrink 6%.
It isn’t a matter of shrinkage, but permanent realignment. Good
times over.
*
WORLD NEWS: Why are the fires in Australia called a natural
disaster? Its murder. OK, its dry but if you leave a door open
its still theft.
*
BRIT NEWS: Dumbing down in education in the news again. Been
going on for years, the previous generation dumbed down on the
one before.
*
BRIT NEWS: Less jobs req’d now. Study says kids babysat by
Grandma have problems. Such reports now hip. Media image
of working mom changing.
*
BRIT NEWS: Govt man Ed Balls says crisis to be worse than
1930s. I think so too. It isn’t a Recession, but a transition.
But to what?

Find fiction, poetry and sayings on comment 1 below.

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RATTLER’S TALE

A Voyage of the Imagination

**********

SPECTRAL IMAGES

It flickers, brightly, then goes out,
something there, no doubt,
Go a bit closer, take a peek,
Knowledge, novelty, always seek;
Definite activity – see it there,
On the verge of sentient glare,
Soon to blossom, come out to us,
Join the vibe, universal buzz;
Time to meet – let them join the club,
No longer spectral, in the hub,
Landing now, they seem very tense,
Hello humans, we’re your friends

(c) Anthony North, February 2009

******************************

SPORT – Fiction

The sun blazed.
Through the haze he saw the problem. The patrol had been split. Three of them had been pinned down. The constant zip of AK-47 fire seemed to puncture his eardrums, and as he looked once more over the rock, a fighter’s rounds hit home, an arm flying, disembodied …
He knew it was up to him …

Another time. Afterwards …
He watched the game. The centre forward made his move, dribbling the ball around the opponent and finding a space. The soldier sensed the urgency of the move – saw the opposition try to fill the gap. Stop him.

He knew it was open territory, but he saw the fighters make their flanking move. There were only seconds left before all three would be dead. He took a deep breath, thought of his mother – of the life he had yet to live. He raised himself, squeezed the trigger, let off a burst, and charged ….

The centre forward had cleared the gap. The goal loomed ahead of him, and in a touch of absolute brilliance he pulled back his foot and kicked.
The soldier remained seated as the stadium erupted in cheers – in adulation of their hero.

© Anthony North, February 2009

CANDY

Candy, absolute perfection,
A tasty, ultimate confection,
Her company a treat,
Her manner sweet …

To find the words, an impossible task,
So much a secret, before you ask,
The date was great, went so well,
Not something of which I can tell;
Suffice to say we were led astray,
Plenty of time for ultimate play,
Peeling the wrapper an absolute joy,
Knowing the difference between girl and boy;
Growing close, a tasty delight,
Mixed so well throughout the night,
Savouring every sugary mix,
Melting, finally, as we kissed

Candy, absolute perfection,
A tasty, ultimate confection,
But time for respite,
Hhmm
Pick another tonight

(c) Anthony North, February 2009

PREMONITION ALERT!!!

The aircraft crashed into the field before my eyes. I’d been lazily strolling down a country lane when the jet fighter thundered overhead. And a couple of seconds later I saw the disaster.
Well, actually, I hadn’t. I’d imagined it. I’d seen images, but they were within my own mind. Yet, a couple of hours later I turned on the news and there, not fifty miles from my location, a jet fighter of the same type had crashed.

Was it the same fighter that had flown over me?

I don’t know, but chances were high. And there was little doubt I had had a premonition of disaster. Now, I won’t tell you the type of aircraft, or when it happened.
As with most anecdotes, it is unproveable, and I mention it simply as an example of one of my many experiences, and the thought patterns following the event. You see, I didn’t go all mystical. I went all rational.

First of all, I knew the jet type intimately.

I’m ex-RAF and worked for 18 months on a squadron that flew the type. My office was in the hangar, and I walked past them dozens of times a day.
I saw them fly dozens of times a day, and knew many of the aircrew. And the simple fact was, I knew how the jet sounded, acted, and where the dangers lay. So the question is: did I unconsciously note there was something wrong with that jet, thus producing the mind image?

This is the most likely explanation.

If, of course, it was the same jet I saw. This is a totally rational explanation. And if such pre-knowledge can happen to me, it must happen to hundreds of people every day – which is an unused resource.
Researchers are slowly drawing back the shadows of precognition. We now know electromagnetism can affect the mind, and some attribute it to pre-knowledge of earthquakes, etc, as known to be sensed by animals, and some humans.

Knowledge intuited unconsciously can easily produce a premonition.

Such knowledge can come from anything from subliminally smelling the hint of gas, to a fleeting conversation heard days ago, but triggered by something new. Two and two come together and a flash of pre-knowledge can be the result.
Why isn’t this vast pool of pre-knowledge being used to save lives? Okay, a premonitions bureau has been tried from time to time, without much success. Any information received was too late.
This is no longer the case. Now we have mobile phones and instant communication. Of course, many such premonitions are spurious, and such a bureau would be inundated by hoax calls. But I’m convinced that a dedicated network of researchers and operators would eventually find a pattern in the nature of calls coming in, allowing them to issue suitable alerts.
Once that happened there is the possibility of a real pre-knowledge intelligence ability, especially regarding the rise in premonitions surrounding major disasters. And if ever shown to work, it would destroy the notion that there is no value in parapsychology.
Of course, everyone would need to know the number of the network so as to contact it straight away. Now what catches the attention? The US emergency number is 911; the UK has 999. I know. How about 666?

© Anthony North, February 2009

THE THING ABOUT ADAM’S RIB

Including Totally Optional Prompts and Three Word Wednesday.
Have you had a go yet?

Unlike many rationalists, I do not scoff at the Creation as described in the Bible. I don’t believe that Creation occurred as narrated, but I am convinced there is a lot of reasoned thought within the account.
Most scientists don’t like this idea. Rather, it is rubbish produced by a superstitious culture with no hold upon reality whatsoever. Hence, we have the two polarities of the Evolution/Creation controversy.

I disagree with both stances.

Taking the scientific view, it is blatantly not true that such ancient societies descended into superstition alone. Superstition didn’t build the pyramids, or work out agriculture. Reasoned thought had to be involved.
This said, I am always on the look-out for reasoned thought within the Bible, and I nearly always find it. And as an exercise in just what I mean, there is no better example than the idea that Eve was created from Adam’s rib.

The whole idea seems ridiculous.

But read on. Adam is created first, but he is then made to sleep and God takes one of his ribs with which to make woman. Of course, together they make a potent force, and procreation soon occurs.
This is the first important point – that procreation had not occurred before hand. A further point is that, during the Adam and Eve Narrative, the writer seems to embody the whole process of life in Adam.

We now have what we need to make sense of it all.

Indeed, it can become quite reasonable. And what we must first argue is that, if female was not yet existent, can we call Adam male?
I think not. Indeed, I would argue that we can best understand the account if we class Adam as a hermaphrodite – i.e. sexless. Now, prior to sexual reproduction, evolution relied on asexual reproduction.

How did asexual reproduction occur?

It involves cloning, by taking a cutting from the parent in order to produce an offspring. And with such information we can look at the Adam and Eve Narrative in a totally new light.
To me it becomes a perfect symbolic understanding of the change from asexual to sexual reproduction, with a cutting (rib) taken from a hermaphrodite, leading to male and female, and the obvious sexual reproduction that then followed.
One obvious deduction some could make from this is a process of incest, with Adam being the parent of Eve, but it implies no such thing if looked at it terms of symbolic understanding of evolutionary change.
Indeed, the narrative becomes a marvellous explanatory tale better than any scientist has so far managed to produce. And if correct, it shows that, underlying the general trend of Creation, is a reasoned mind-set at work.
One other point of importance, whilst this essay seems to favour evolution over Creation, as such, it actually does no such thing, for it leaves intact the possibility of a God-force driving the process forward.
Could such reasoning eventually lead to a middle ground between evolutionist and Creationist. Well, yes – though I won’t hold my breath.

© Anthony North, January 2009

OPPOSITES

Black and white, up or down,
Hot, cold; smile or frown,
Opposites side by side,
never meet, nor confide;
Left or right, bringing strife,
politics sticking in the knife,
yet male and female equal life,
now and then they meet, are rife;
Maybe we should remember this,
when opposites merge life is bliss

(c) Anthony North, January 2009

INNER THOUGHTS

Are we who we seem to be,
the very person others see,
or do we have an inner being,
closed from view, never seen?
Ruled by thoughts, often jagged,
carrying with them our life’s baggage,
sometimes serene, perfect caress,
full of love and tenderness;
At other harsh, spiteful, vile,
ruthless with a sadistic smile;
This inner life is closed from view,
but guiding us, never true,
a facade being our only task,
the real ‘us’ hidden by our social mask

(c) Anthony North, January 2009

THE BUBBLE UNIVERSE

Does a spider exist in the same universe as a human being? In one sense, yes, we can splat them. They can scare us. So in some physical way we exist side by side in the same world, the same universe.
But does this extend to our appreciation of reality? Does a spider intuit the same universe as a human? Does it inhabit, experience and understand in the same way as us? This, we have to conclude, is doubtful.

There is an important point here.

Much of the way we see the universe is based on our knowledge of it. Indeed, reality is a compromise between how the universe thinks it ‘is’, and how we appreciate how it ‘is’.
Reality – the universe – becomes a subtle construct based upon our consensual view of it, combined with universal realities that help to fashion the consensus. When a scientist talks about ‘laws of nature’, he isn’t exactly being honest. Some can be obviously seen as such – things fall – but other ‘laws’ are based on theory, and are the laws of ‘man’.

Consensual realities are not exact.

The human race itself lives in a cauldron of conflicting consensual realities, the most obvious being the ‘scientific’ and the ‘religious’. In either case, the ‘realities’ of our knowledge confirm the paradigm.
It is almost as if reality is like a vacuum – and knowledge abhors a vacuum, if I may paraphrase a famous scientific ‘law’. ‘Reality’ is flooded with how we think it ‘is’. And the ‘observer’ becomes intrinsic to the ‘reality’ we think we experience.

Let’s go back to the spider.

We can now see that it is feasible to say it doesn’t exist in the same reality as us, and the religionist doesn’t live in the same reality as the scientist. Rather, differing realities co-exist, intermingle, but are fundamentally different.
It is almost as if there are societal ‘bubbles’ of knowledge. But we can complicate the subject even more than this. I’ve written in the past of how the ‘law of large numbers’ leads to greater order dependent on increasing numbers involved.

I’ve applied this to the universe.

In effect, the universe could be made of layered constructs, with a lifeform being less ordered than a species; a species less ordered than a planet, a planet less ordered than a solar system, etc.
This is actually understood in ecology. Existence is constructed of interlaced ecosystems, each reliant on the other, and extending from the planetary ecosystem to the fungi between your toes. And it is unlikely that it understands its existence causes the higher function of a human scratching it because it itches.
The ‘systems’ of ecosystems can, I think, be transferred to the argument I am raising here. We can exist in our own ecosystem, which we recognize both physically and intellectually, but we could also, unbeknown to us, also exist in an ever-increasing number of ecosystems both parallel to ours, and larger with higher function.
We may well appreciate some effects ‘physically’ from those higher systems – for instance, we experience wider influences such as light and gravity (whatever they are), but this does not mean that our ‘understanding’, based on our own little ‘system’ is anything like as high as the larger interlinked systems ‘appreciate’ and react to.
Rather, from differing paradigms, thru lifeforms, to the nature of the universe itself, we could be part of an interlinked web of existences, which we have barely begun to experience and conceive. Existence, good reader, could well be ‘bubbled’.

© Anthony North, December 2008

THE PLANET GOD

Have you tried my current affairs? Stay informed.
Also, fiction and poetry.

We are so infatuated by individuality and materialism in the west that we rarely question whether the concept is correct. Yet, alongside this, we retain a popular interest in mysteries and the unexplained. This seems to be a contradiction.
Such mysteries usually find explanation in things beyond the material or individual. Yet, their popularity offers the possibility that there is an intuitive knowing that we are wrong to merely think of the material and individual.

This ‘knowing’ could be important.

It suggests that it would be so easy to expand our horizons if proper ideas were put forward that would give a purpose to such ‘knowing’. After all, without intellectual direction, those things unseen become mere belief or superstition.
In what direction should we look for a deeper understanding of impulses above the material and individual? Well, arguably such an impulse would be ‘higher’ than us. And the obvious place to look is the planet itself. After all, we DO exist within its system.

Some philosophers have thought deeply about this.

Many are aware of Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis where the planet seems to coordinate itself through a form of natural balance. But some thinkers previously thought of this as an evolutionary process.
Typical were Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin who devised the ‘elan vital’ and ‘noo-genesis’ respectively. Both these ideas see evolution having a higher principle above man, and spreading out to the planet and universe.

We don’t understand such concepts today.

The upshot of materialism and individuality is that we only accept those things in the world that can be seen or theorized, and have obvious value to us.
The metaphysical – those things that are more difficult to grasp – are ignored. This is due to specialization and reductionism. Yet, there is another way of thinking, in the holistic – an understanding that things can be ‘whole’.

I’ve tried to grasp this concept in recent essays.

And I’ve tried to grasp it in terms of man being just part of a ‘whole’ in planetary terms. Typical is the way electromagnetic impulses are known to affect brain chemistry, to the point of producing hallucinatory phenomena and mystical experiences.
I noted how changes in weather patterns due to global warming involve changes in electromagnetism, thus arguing that the planet could be regulating us in terms of ‘rapture’ – making us more spiritually minded and ecological.
If such concepts could be seen to be rational, then it removes man from the primary role within the planetary environment. Rather, it shows that we can be ‘changed’. And in many ways this makes absolute sense.
Evolution says that we adapt to changes in an environment. Hence, that environment itself becomes primary in what we are, and what we become. And this is a process ABOVE our sense of individuality.
The biggest ‘environment’ we know of is the planet itself. So maybe it is time to realize that impulses DO exist above our individuality, and things not yet grasped by materialism can have existence AND effects.
Perhaps even to the point that the planet is really a god.

© Anthony North, December 2008

THE SCIENCE GENE

Have you tried my current affairs? Stay informed.
Also, fiction and poetry.

To me, the paranormal has value. I don’t accept ‘classical’ interpretations, but think a wider psycho-sociology is involved, and most of my writing in this area is based on this premise. However, I also think something else.
Understanding of the paranormal could have wide implications for society in general, and knowledge in particular. I attempt to put rational hypotheses before the public, and simply ask for a fair hearing, which I usually get.

Except, that is, for the average science type.

When it comes to this modern breed, I immediately fall into the same category as anyone else who is prepared to give the paranormal a chance.
I never expected any different. The general scientific acceptance of curiosity may work for most areas of life and the universe, but regarding the paranormal, there is a form of mental block. Simply considering the subject is enough to be discounted.

I’m interested in why this is.

Could it be down to a simple inability in them to comprehend the subject? Certainly it appears so. But this is not an explanation. But maybe an explanation CAN be forthcoming.
It is all to do with genetic culturalism. Now, what IS this? Behaviour is said to be down to nature or nurture. The former is due to our genes, whilst the latter is said to be to do with our upbringing, etc. Yet I’ve recently begun writing about a third factor in this equation.

Culture could play an important part.

We exist in culture. We are labeled through our culture. Our knowledge is very much a part of our culture. Hence, culture plays an important part in our behaviour.
Behaviour seems to change over time – we have slowly become more skeptical of superstition, for instance. More and more are becoming vegetarian – our views on race, gender, etc, seem to be more inclusive.

How do such changes happen?

Well, they seem to happen within culture. But could it be that changes in culture lead, over several generations, to changes in the behavioural elements of our genetic structure?
We talk of change through the ‘meme’, but I’m suggesting here that it could be a real genetic influence, and not just a concept. In effect, what we are is not enshrined in genetic stone, but fluid. We change as our culture directs.
As with evolution generally, the culturally fittest ideas could well survive to be conditioned into the person. Hence behaviour – the cultural prevalence of the religious or scientific impulse, for instance – can be programmed into the person.
Does this give a hint of a reason for science’s intransigence when it comes to the paranormal? I don’t know. But it should be discussed, for it suggests that the ‘natural’ bias against the paranormal is not ‘natural’ at all, but the result of a form of cultural brainwashing
Indeed, it suggests that, in terms of behaviour, nothing is ‘natural’ at all. Rather, we are fluid receptors of change and ideals produced by an over-culture of our collective behaviour and ideas.
WE think, therefore I am could be a reality – in more ways than one.

© Anthony North, November 2008